Learning Curve
by Lyse's Pieces
Summary: In some ways, Jack was the antiChrist of every moral that had been instilled into David. [JackDavid oneshot]


**Disclaimer: **I'm out of clever ways to state this: no ownership over here. No money-making, either.

* * *

"If I were completely honest, I'd probably be a dead man," Jack Kelly conceded, digging at the dirt embedded in his fingernails. "Because like a dead man, an honest man has to take what he's given and make the best of it."

"Most people would consider that the challenge of life," Pointed out David Jacobs, who sat on the roof of his apartment building, his legs lazily thrown over each other in front of him. It was almost poetic in a way, David mused, watching Thursday's sun leave their sky for someone else's. It was after an early dinner at the Jacob's home, concluding a day with a stunningly-bad headline that Jack had been stunningly-able to move. As the two boys had climbed the fire escape onto the roof, David had asked Jack, "Why don't you just sell the real headline? You're really just making something up, and that's disappointing a lot of people." Jack had sat down and settled on the roof, considering David's question for a few moments before answering.

Now, David absent-mindedly reached up and wrapped a short, auburn curl around his finger and glanced to his right, watching Jack's animated eyes.

"Right," Jack finally answered, "but Davey, just how much of a challenge are you willing to chance, huh? What happens when that 'challenge' starts to kill ya?"

David gently chewed the inside of his mouth, digesting Jack's words. In some ways, he cogitate, Jack was the anti-Christ of every moral that had been instilled in him throughout his childhood. Jack seemed to twist and manipulate every noble notion until it molded to his lifestyle, and he seemed to be better off because of it. Working his jaw thoughtfully, David finally answered, "I guess you just do what's right."

"Exactly," Jack replied, the corners of his mouth twitching in excitement. "and whatever's right is what keeps you alive. We're not here so we can die."

David paused again before responding, feeling again the ideals implanted in him crumble like smashed bricks. He shifted uncomfortably on the cement, scraping his knuckles, "But," he took an uncertain breath, "everybody dies."

"Yeah," smiling and shaking his head, Jack shifted his weight back, playfully reaching out and wrapping his large, rough hand around the other David's slender, cold fingers, "But Dave, everybody sneezes, too. Are we here to do that?"

It was David's turn to smile, his hand frozen immobile despite the warm encasing of Jack's palm and the hot sweat beginning to gather in the folds of his fingers, "No," he managed.

"'Course not," Jack's warm complexion lit up and he squeezed his hands tighter. He loftily shook a renegade lock of his dark hair off of his forehead before explaining, "We're born to learn, y'know? Roll with life's punches."

"Punches like living honestly," David quipped, his lips in a hard smirk.

"Punches like knowing what to do with whatever life throws at you. Like taking something and making it work to _your_ benefit. So you gotta change some things, so what? I mean, if everybody's still okay when they wake up in the morning, and nobody's the wiser, then why can't _that_ be honest? Huh? Life ain't about laying low and getting beat up because you wanna live _some guy's_ idea of 'right'. Life's about learning and overcoming challenges. And if you gotta change some things around to do that, then you just have to. There're all sorts of learning curves, Davey. You just gotta find yours."

David was quiet as he studied Jack's face: the contrast of his casual jaw to his stern eyes. He pulled his hand from Jack's and gently massaged his pink knuckles, carefully replying in a low voice, "That was deep."

Jack settled his hands behind him and leaned, languidly stretching the muscles in his back, "Nah, that wasn't deep. Just sorta insightful."

Distractedly, David pushed his knuckles against his knee cap, popping the building tension from his joints. "Yeah," he murmured, his mouth dry of any words. His eyes glazed over the horizon, the earliest rays of light surrendering the battle to the coming night.

Jack reached up and plucked a leaf from the hanging baskets near him. He ironed it with his thumbnail, coaxing the green pigment to ooze out. He seemed content with his work, even comfortable with the silence, whereas each passing moment clogged David's joints with an algid rigidness. "Jack?" he asked tentatively.

"Hmm?" Jack grunted, smearing the green color off of his nail and onto the cuff of his sleeve.

"How," David paused again, strategically selecting his words, "how, then, do you decide what's right? And how do you know what to do?"

Jack looked up and studied the other boy's shadowed profile, narrowing his brown eyes in thought, "It's hard to say, Dave. There's a learning curve."

"A curve," David repeated, straining it through his mind.

"Yeah. A curve," Jack's eyes were afire again; he wet his lips before saying, "People all learn at different rates. What's right for others might be totally wrong for you," He leaned towards David, tenderly folding their fingers together. "You know when something's right, Dave, you just do. You get this feeling."

David worked to relax his tense muscles, acutely aware of how close Jack's face as to his own. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse and as tense as the rest of his body, "Like what?

Jack expelled a pent-up breath and looked to the sky, "I don't know, Dave." He locked his gaze with David's. After a moment, he softened his eyes as well as his voice, "It's like…" Jack looked back at the darkening sky, fishing for words. He stroked the rough pad of his thumb against the back of David's hand and said, "When… you just _know_. When something's right," He looked back at David, "you can just _feel it_."

David gently flexed his hand within Jack's. His palm was soaked with hot nerves, and so stiff it felt like he had been clenching his fist. Jack leaned in closer, until David could feel hiss warm breath billow on his jaw. Jack reached his free hand to sweep a short, stray curl away from the other's face. David could feel the nervous, moist path left by his fingertips.

"And when something's right," Jack whispered in a voice that would have been inaudible if he hadn't been so close, "then you just have to make it happen, regardless of consequences." Jack held David's eyes and timidly coated his lips with his tongue before fully sealing the gap between the two, firmly pressing his warm, broken lips against David's.

David heard a loud buzzing in his ears, and had taken note of Jack's smooth, tan forehead before realizing that he should probably shut his eyes. The heat in his hands flushed to his neck, and the buzzing in his ears experienced a crescendo to an almost deafening volume, drowning everything but the pounding in his chest and Jack's firm lips, pressed to his and stemming a warmth that seemed to flood the rest of his body.

When Jack eventually opened the space between them, David managed to breathe, "Seize the day," in response to Jack's last words.

"Seize the day," Jack repeated simply, a grin playfully tugging the corners of his mouth.

David felt the thudding in his chest and allowed several comfortable, silent seconds to pass them. Finally, he asked, "Jack?"

"Hmm?" His tone was airy and content now, almost as if he was humming a soft tune.

"How did you know it was right to do that?"

Jack chuckled and leaned close to David, grazing his knuckles against the other boy's soft jaw, "The learning curve, Dave. All in the learning curve."


End file.
